Full time vet & amateur event rider

Month: April 2015

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We took Merlin for his first taste of eventing yesterday for the Intro (90cm) at Aston Le Walls and he was a star. He behaved brilliantly all day from standing next to the lorry to not being bothered working in busy warm up arenas! We did the dressage on their huge arena, so working in was quite busy in the other half of the arena – Merlin felt fairly bright to start with but this meant he did a lovely pinging trot and felt fantastic! He was listening well and did a lovely rhythmical test for a brilliant 27.8, which meant he was 2nd after the dressage!

We then had a long gap to walk the course before the SJ. Show jumping was on a surface too and we warmed up indoors, Merlins first time indoors since Sue’s had him but he didn’t seem bothered although the sunlight shining in the corners was occasionally a bit scary!! He jumped a lovely round and even threw in a little buck between 2 fences because he was enjoying himself so much!

Onto XC – see course photos here. Whilst we were waiting to go there were a few problems at the second fences, which was quite spooky and fairly narrow, plus was on a downhill slope from the first. I made sure I really had hold of him and he flew it brilliantly! He jumped the first few fences quite big but gradually felt more and more confident jumping out of his rhythm really well. I was unsure on speed on him but kept a forward rhythm throughout for 2.4 time faults, it’s good to know I need to go a bit faster!

Ready to go XC!

So a double clear at his first event to finish on 30.3 and WIN!! What a clever boy!